BlackBerry is working on its next QWERTY keypad smartphone dubbed as BlackBerry Athena. The smartphone was first spotted on GeekBench back in February, through configuration files, and in European device registration databases. Now, we have got the first alleged renders of the upcoming smartphone.

From the leaked renders, the device seems quite resembling the BlackBerry KEYone. It comes with typical QWERTY keypad with a rectangular slab design. The QWERTY keypad might come with touch-sensitive keys like the KEYone, there’s a BlackBerry logo on the space-bar which suggest that it might have a fingerprint scanner underneath. On the top of the phone, there is cut out for the earpiece. The front camera and sensors seem to have a smaller housing now.

BlackBerry Athena Leaked Renders

On the back, the phone comes with a rugged texture for a better grip while the upper part of the back is covered with smooth leather. Following the industry trend, the BlackBerry Athena comes equipped with horizontally aligned dual-rear camera setup. It sports a metal frame with a brushed finish; there are antenna lines at the top. The volume rockers and power button and a textured Convenience Key are on the right while the SIM tray is now on the left. A USB Type-C port, speaker grilles and a 3.5mm audio jack are at the bottom.

From the previous leaks, the BlackBerry Athena is expected to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor. It will offer 6GB/ 8GB of RAM along with 64GB/ 128GB of internal storage. BlackBerry Athena is expected to launch sometime later this year. However, we haven’t heard anything official yet, so we suggest you take this with a pinch of salt and stay tuned with us for more updates.

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Mohammed Mujtaba khan is an IT professional focused towards the digital world, from past ten years he is been working in many tech companies including Zapak Digital, The Mobile Store, Intel Security Group - McAfee and Tally solutions. In his free time, he loves watching Sci-Fi and fantasy movies.